


The Flowers

by wrabbit



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Comment Fic, Community: shkinkmeme, Flowers, Formerly Anonymous, Gen, Hugs, Mourning, Prompt Fic, SH: Hiatus, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-18
Updated: 2010-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:50:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrabbit/pseuds/wrabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Switzerland, Watson is unable to mourn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a shkinkmeme prompt.

Instead of the natural street detritus other things begin to collect on the stoop. A single rose, a handkerchief, a small tower of coins on the windowsill, handfuls of violets in the door handle, wildflowers that grow nowhere in London at all left on the stairs. A waif of a street urchin weaving through the cabs, the receding back of a female head are the only signs of it. No one speaks to Watson, and if they try, he didn't notice, doesn't notice much at all in fact except the unidentifiable, untouchable loss that creeps into him by days. He watches it sprout as if distant from his own body, slippery and vague in his chest, but hope, damnable hope born of not knowing, keeps the mourning he so desires at bay.

He leaves the flowers to wilt and blow away, except one, a pink rose at the breakfast table. He's staring at it on his seventh day back, feeling nothing, the sharp human sounds and clapping of the cabs from the street below washing over him like echoes from a world away, when the door opens. He opens his mouth to invite the Holmes brother in, but the silence presses, and there's nothing to say to the omniscient look in Mycroft's eyes.

He is much the same as he once was, years ago now, ponderous and patient and unassuming. Only the pained lines around his eyes break the clean efficiency of his toilet. He performs himself perfectly, with hardly a sign of the ragged mourning that Watson sees himself embody, but doesn't in the heart of him feel. "Sit, please," Watson tries when Mycroft has been staring at him for some seconds. The words are comfortingly familiar in his mouth.

Mycroft's eyes are the same silver as his brother's, but infinitely more patient. Watson thinks he could unravel under that gaze and he suddenly discovers that hates him bitterly. He hates him for everything Mycroft can't tell him about then, about now. Hates him for the hope drilling in Watson's chest, making him numb even now as he's tearing at the seams.

"Doctor Watson," Mycroft says suddenly, concern creeping into his clinical and mellifluous voice.

"Just tell me," Watson says. He's crying. He's not sure when that started, probably under those eyes, those pitiless eyes. "Just tell me he's dead. You know he's dead. You know. You know. Please, I have to know," the words tear through his throat without his permission. His vision is swimming and he can't identify what he feels after so many days without feeling, but it hurt it hurts it hurts.

He realizes Mycroft has stood up, is moving swiftly around the table and large hands are wrapping around his cheeks. He struggles to hear what the other man is saying, but everything is slipping away again, into a nothing place where there's nothing but white and wild flowers on his doorstep. But Mycroft pulls him back unforgivably with his hands on his face calling him back, lifting him easily onto his feet and Watson finds himself pressed to the other man's chest. One hand wraps around his back and the other presses his cheek into Mycroft's shoulder. Watson comes back to himself supported gently, rocking in midair, and he breathes in deeply Mycroft's cologne.

"I can not tell you that, Doctor Watson," Mycroft is saying quietly into his hair. "I'm so sorry, but you must let it go." Something inexorable blooms in Watson's chest there in Mycroft's arms as Mycroft continues to murmur, roots digging home through his ribcage, vines constricting his heart, thorns piercing his lungs, stalk tearing through his throat in a horrible ripping sound, and finally, finally, finally, out.


End file.
